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“They were students at the defense language school and once they complete their training at DLI they go to another assignment,” said Dave Smith, a spokesman for the Air Education and Training Command at Randolph AFB. “If they choose to leave the language school and return to their own country without telling us, they can do that. We just don't know.”

The DLI at Lackland is a Defense Department agency that specializes in teaching English to foreign troops. The courses range from eight to 52 weeks, and foreign military personnel can live on the campus if an Invitational Travel Order or one from NATO authorizes dependents.

Whether any of the Afghans had their families here isn't clear. Gary Emery, chief spokesman for the 37th Training Wing at Lackland, said he didn't know. He said 16 Afghans went AWOL in 2009 and one vanished this year.

Some likely had finished their Lackland courses and were on their way to training elsewhere when they disappeared, Emery said.

Disappearances like the ones at the DLI haven't been uncommon. But Emery noted that around 3,400 international students attended the Lackland school last year, including 228 from Afghanistan. Of those, the 16 Afghans went AWOL along with the Iraqi and one from Djibouti. Two from Tunisia have gone missing this year along with another from Guinea-Bissau in West Africa.

Asked why the Air Force hadn't revealed that Afghan troops had gone AWOL, Emery said the disappearances occurred gradually. “I don't know if I consider that particularly newsworthy,” he said, adding, “it hasn't been all at once.”